skiing – Page 18 – Ross Hewitt Guiding

Navis Freebird Review

31st Jan 2016by rosshewittguiding16 Comments

New Zealand skiing Ross Hewitt Tom Grant-1-2

The Navis has been in the Black Crows line up since the early days and became a cult ski amongst the Chamonix steep skiers. In 2015 Black Crows introduced the lightened Freebird range for the back country.

Initially I was suspicious that the ride quality and dampening was going to be compromised by the lightened poplar / carbon / glass fibre core and I was slow to get out on them – how wrong could I be! I mounted mine with PLUM guides for the 2015 winter and was really surprised by how dampened the ski is. It skis similarly to the classic 2012 Volkl Mantra but without the weight of the metal sheets. My skis are the 179.4 / 133-102-118 / 19.

After the European winter I took my Navis Freebird to ski mountaineer in New Zealand where big walks carrying kit are the order of the day. They make the perfect compromise of weight, float with 102 under foot and edge holding.

Since then I have remounted them with a PLUM 170 race binding and the set up weighs 4120 g. The 2016 version has been lightened by 400 g so with any type of low tech binding it would give you a 4 kg set up. These are still my go to ski and the 102 under foot makes them much better for edging on firm or spring snow.

Navis freebird evaluation

Christmas Eve on Chardonnet South Face

31st Jan 2016by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

On Christmas Eve I had the pleasure of skiing with Jesper Petersson and returning to the Argentiere basin. We skinned from Bochard over the Col des Rachasses towards the Col de Chardonnet to have a go at the South Face. Rotten snow meant getting off the Argentiere glacier was really tough and we had been going for 5 hours by the time we got to the face. The weather was changing rapidly and by the time we climbed the initial couloir the wind was howling, tugging incessantly at the skis on our bags trying to lift us off the mountain. The decision to ski down was pretty simple!

Argentiere Training Loop

31st Jan 2016by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

This is one of my favourite touring loops in the Argentiere basin which is continually interesting as it provides the variety of skinning, bootpacking, scrambling, rope work and some couloir skiing. I’m not going to give away any details excpet to ay I regularly see Killian on it before he goes on to tag a few other peaks. Usually its pretty quick but before they opened the top GM tram it felt considerably longer with the bonus skin from Bochard over the Col des Rachasses and it ended up being a 6 hour day – its nice to get some mileage for those big 12-15 hr days that lie ahead and just for general base fitness to be able to ski every day. Besides, being alone in the Argentiere basin and hanging out below those beautiful big walls is well worth that effort.

British Mountain Guides Ski Technique Course

31st Jan 2016by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

The New Year kicked off for me with a guides training course in Leysin. The ski technique course was put in place to help the candidate guides improve the technical aspects of their skiing prior to undertaking the induction test for the British Guides Scheme, recognising that most mountaineers have learnt to ski in the mountains rather than coming through the traditional alpine ski process. Fred Harper was a British Guide passionate about skiing and his memorial trust pays for the candidates to go on the course which is a real privilege for us and and massive help with the financial commitment to become a guide.

I was in a group with Alex Languetin who is a Swiss skier, trainer and coach who excels in all disciplines from alpine racing, moguls, freestyle and freeride. His party piece is ripping down the piste with one ski rotated 180 degrees and pointing backwards proving flexibility is just as important for high level skiing as it is to climb 9a. He kept the pace high for 3 days of intensive training that varied from riding fakey to implementing cross under turns down spines and moguls while the atmosphere remained relaxed and conducive to getting to know each other better and have a few laughs. The course also included a classroom session covering the technical aspects of skis, boots and bindings which dispelled a few myths and highlighted the advantages of certain go to pieces of kit.

Overall the course was brilliant and it certainly inspired me to put the big surf board skis away and get back out on the performance race skis and work on my carving again!

20160105_162759 Myself and Dave Searle on the magic carpetMax 20160106_090506 Max, Guy, Duncan, Calum Yvonne 20160106_091152 Top instructor Yvonne with Paul and Max 20160107_143600 Alex, Calum, Duncan, Dave, Guy , Max and Jack in some Scottish weather

Pointe D’Orny

31st Jan 2016by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

The autumn and pre Christmas period was a busy one for me with our trip to New Zealand, high pressure in the Alps and perfect stable snow conditions for exploring. That meant I only had a couple of rest days per month and by the end of the year I touched 180 ski days – hence the reason why my blog was somewhat neglected due to the ease of posting to instagram and facebook!

The day after the PLUM party Vivian Bruchez, Giulia Monego and Dave Searler headed to Pointe d”Orny to ski one of the couloirs. After climbing the couloir we sat and ate lunch in while soaking up the sun on the plateau and taking in the views of the Chardonnet and surrounding peaks. Once again we found a mixture of good cold snow varying from powder to chalk.